


blind at the roots of flowers

by merlypops



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Boys Kissing, Break Up, Developing Relationship, Emotional Manipulation, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Inspired by Real Events, Kissing, M/M, Poetry, Relationship(s), Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5657029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlypops/pseuds/merlypops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Everything was dark and cold but the older boy’s hands were warm in his, calloused and strong from years of playing the drums. Calum liked the way Ashton’s hazel eyes glittered in the lights at the station as they sat on the benches in the evenings after college, waiting for their train to come in. (Sometimes, Calum wished the pair of them had stayed like that, back before everything had crumbled to pieces.)'</p><p>
  <b>All Calum wants is for Ashton to love him back. Only, when it happens, things don't quite go as planned.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	blind at the roots of flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Today’s been a strange day. I broke up with my boyfriend. I read _Eleanor & Park_ for about three hours straight. I discovered a new Carol Ann Duffy poem (“If I Was Dead” - I added some of the quotes to this story and it's also what the title is from).  
> Maybe this fic will be okay. I’m not sure.  
> But it was cathartic to write. And I’m not going to fucking cry.  
> Not over this.

Calum met Ashton in the winter.

Everything was dark and cold but the older boy’s hands were warm in his, calloused and strong from years of playing the drums. Calum liked the way Ashton’s hazel eyes glittered in the lights at the station as they sat on the benches in the evenings after college, waiting for their train to come in. (Sometimes, Calum wished the pair of them had stayed like that, back before everything had crumbled to pieces.)

Ashton wore band t-shirts and skinny jeans, and he was almost never seen without his headphones hanging around his neck. His lips were cool the first time they touched Calum’s and the kiss made the younger boy’s head swim, made him loop his arms around Ashton’s shoulders and kiss him back harder because he didn’t know what else to do.

Ashton held Calum’s hand under the table at college sometimes, squeezing it comfortingly when the dark-haired boy was afraid to read out loud during class.

“ _If I was dead, and my eyes, blind at the roots of flowers, wept into nothing, I swear your love would raise me out of my grave, in my flesh and blood, like Lazarus -_ ” Ashton’s fingers were strong and slender as they entwined with Calum’s, and the dark-haired boy felt heartened. “ _\- hungry for this, and this, and this; your living kiss._ ”

Calum didn’t realise he’d fallen in love with Ashton - with his best friend of over a year - until it was too late. The rising feelings felt like drowning almost, like the tide was rushing in and dragging everything else away… and it felt like Calum had everything and nothing to lose, all at once, even if it _didn’t_ make any sense.

Ashton didn’t want to know when he finally found out how Calum felt. He looked at Calum with his damp dark hair and the rain running down his face like tears - and there were no tears; there fucking _weren’t_ \- and he smiled at him, soft and sad as his full lips tugged up, and he said: “No. I’m sorry, Cal. I like you - I like _kissing_ you - but I don’t want you like that. I’m better alone.”

Calum went home and punched his bedroom wall until his knuckles split open, smearing the faintest trace of blood on the pale blue paint. (It was still there now, if Calum squinted.)

Ashton was cold after that. They still sat together in most of their lessons since those were their assigned seats but, like most things, life went on and Calum got used to it. He wore his headphones in class whenever he could get away with it and he pointedly didn’t doodle trains and lips and soft hazel eyes in the margins of his notebooks. Barely ever.

There was a boy Calum saw in the corridors sometimes who waited outside the classroom opposite. He had soft blond hair and wide cornflower blue eyes, and the dark metal ring in his lip twitched when he smiled at Calum.

His name was Luke and they texted sometimes, messaged on Facebook and talked about music. Luke offered to teach Calum to play the guitar - not just the bass - and Calum wanted to accept but Ashton’s tanned face flickered behind his eyes and he couldn’t bring himself to.

The older boy was still ignoring him and Calum’s loneliness was eating away at him because he hadn’t just lost someone he wanted to date. He’d lost his best friend too.

Everything got turned on its head a few weeks later but, for the life of him, Calum didn’t know what had changed.

All he _did_ know was that he went to college one day, sat in his usual seat beside Ashton and avoided his gaze as he’d grown so used to doing and… and Ashton reached out and covered Calum’s hand with his own, lacing their fingers together wordlessly.

Calum looked up at him with dark eyes and Ashton smiled crookedly, the corner of his mouth twitching up like he couldn’t help himself.

“I missed you,” Ashton said, rubbing the back of Calum’s hand with his thumb. “You wouldn’t talk to me.”

‘ _But it was **your** fault_ ,’ Calum thought, staring at Ashton for a long moment before he forced a smile onto his face, swallowing past the faint anxiety stabbing in his chest.

“What changed?” Calum breathed and Ashton scowled at that. It was an ugly expression, twisting his handsome face into something that Calum would rather not look at.

“You were talking to Luke. I didn’t like it,” Ashton muttered, shooting Calum a side-long look before he glared down at the desktop instead. “And then I wondered _why_ I didn’t like it… and I realised I was just jealous… because maybe I wanted you that way after all.”

“Oh,” Calum whispered, stunned. The word seemed insignificant and Calum swallowed again, audibly this time as his eyes burnt with what he prayed wasn’t tears. “Well, I’m back now.” The words were spoken heavily but Ashton didn’t seem to notice. Calum tried to ignore the niggling sensation of unease unfurling in his chest.

“Yes, you are,” the older boy agreed and his hold around Calum’s hand was unbreakable.

Life changed again.

Ashton asked Calum to be his boyfriend. Calum said yes.

The older boy’s mood changes were like whiplash but that was okay; Calum was used to it.

They had some good times too… some funny memories that wouldn’t fade no matter how badly Calum was hurting later… no matter how much the guilt was threatening to choke him.

Ashton burnt the side of his thumb when he was cooking them bacon sandwiches once. Calum tripped over his own feet when they went shopping and knocked Ashton’s sandwich into a puddle. They slept over at each other’s houses and watched stupid films together, and they laughed all the time - when they were kissing with their fingers tangled in hair and their lips sliding together; when they were making love and Calum’s breath was tearing out of him in gasps as Ashton’s fingertips bruised his hips; when they were driving to the cinema in Ashton’s shitty silver car and Calum was sitting there in the passenger seat with Slipknot blaring from the speakers and a beanie pulled down over his dark curls as the night sky whipped past outside.

Whenever they argued, Ashton sent messages to Calum’s family. He told them that he was worried Calum was going to leave him, that he cared about the dark-haired boy so much and that he hoped they’d all take good care of him. It was the most passive aggressive thing Calum could imagine, those careful messages designed to make him feel so fucking low and leave Ashton shining.

It made Calum hate him, kind of. It made him feel sick -

And then Ashton told Calum he loved him one day, his tone measured and careful as he watched the younger boy with calculating eyes. They were walking home together and Calum had been whining about how much homework they had, and Ashton had just said it like it meant nothing. Like those words didn’t send Calum’s pulse thundering in his veins.

“I love you, Calum Hood,” Ashton said. Calum gaped at him wordlessly and he felt like he was falling - at first, Calum had thought it was falling in _love_. Later, he realised it was simply falling deeper into despair.

“I love you too,” Calum mumbled back but his eyes were wide and they stayed dry when Ashton pulled him into a tight hug. (Maybe Calum had never been in love with Ashton at all. Maybe he was just in love with the idea of being in love instead.)

‘ _Being in love_ ’ made their arguments worse than ever.

Ashton would make little comments - spiteful barbs and icy remarks designed to sting - but it was always Calum who lost control. He always snapped first and shouted, and then Ashton would watch him with those sad wet eyes and Calum’s heart would crumble in his chest.

“You’re being cruel,” Ashton would tell Calum, watching him with betrayal as his hazel eyes glistened. “You’re deliberately saying things to upset me. I’m only ever kind to you. I don’t mean to hurt you. I _love_ you, Calum. I don’t understand why you’re being like this.”

It made Calum want to punch the wall again. Or himself.

Or Ashton.

They’d been happy once, back before all of this confusion had taken its toll and Calum had lost control.

Calum only spoke to Luke once after he started seeing Ashton. The blond boy looked at Calum in the corridor with his tired eyes and trembling hands, and he bit his lip and gripped Calum’s shoulder for just a moment, the comforting touch light enough that Calum had to really lean into it to feel the warmth of the taller boy’s hand.

“I thought I’d be happy with Ash, Luke,” Calum whispered and his voice was weak. “But I’m not.”

Luke looked lost and helpless. Usually they only talked online so it was slightly awkward talking face-to-face now. He still tried though. Bless him. Fucking _bless_ him.

Calum’s family mostly sided with Ashton because they thought he was such a _nice_ boy.

Luke was the only one who seemed to see through the facade.

“Well… maybe you were both just better off as friends,” Luke said but then he was gone and Calum realised why a few moments later when Ashton appeared behind them, that same self-satisfied smirk on his face as he pulled Calum in for a kiss that numbed him.

Luke didn’t speak to Calum again.

Ashton looked glad. He got jealous so easily and then he knotted his fingers in Calum’s hair _hard_ when he was kissing him, biting his lip and bruising his skin when he squeezed him too tightly.

Calum felt empty a lot of the time and he knew there was something wrong there, knew that if he just thought about it then he’d realise how fucked up they were but… but a part of him didn’t want to. Calum was scared he wouldn’t find anyone else and maybe they’d get past their issues.

Calum woke up one day in the middle of the night and sat bolt upright, gazing unseeingly at his bedroom wall and the peeling band posters covering it as he wiped the sleep from his eyes.

Maybe the pair of them _could_ get through their problems but… but a part of Calum didn’t want them to. A _big_ part… Maybe all of him.

He couldn’t understand where everything had gone wrong.

It had felt like they had it all once, almost… or that they could do one day, if they just tried hard enough.

But it felt like Ashton never tried at all and Calum couldn’t stand it anymore.

He was too tired and it hurt too much, and Ashton’s eyes were cold when he looked at Calum sometimes and it tore him up inside.

He still didn’t say anything though. He wasn’t brave enough.

“Come and stay over on New Year’s Eve,” Ashton said on the phone after Christmas. “We can see the new year in together. I want to be with you.”

Calum agreed - because he always agreed when Ashton asked him something, even when everything in Calum was screaming that it was a bad idea.

But Calum went, and he slept over, and he got drunk just to _forget_ , and then he passed out hours later at well gone three in the morning, lying motionless beside Ashton in the older boy’s single bed, trying his hardest not to let any part of them touch because every nerve in Calum was screaming that this was wrong-wrong- _wrong_ and he couldn’t stand it anymore.

When Calum woke up the next morning and looked over at Ashton’s sleeping face, he felt… he _felt_.

He took in Ashton’s full lips and his Cupid’s bow. He looked at his long eyelashes fanning out over his tanned cheekbones and the soft caramel of his curls as they tumbled onto the pillow.

Calum looked at Ashton as the sun touched his face and his hazel eyes fluttered open, and there was recognition in the older boy’s eyes but he drew away from Calum unconsciously as his eyes slipped shut again, losing the battle with sleep.

Calum felt nothing at all.

Ashton was sleeping again, his breath leaving him in gentle exhales. He was motionless now and Calum stared at him until his vision went cloudy but it wasn’t with tears. Calum’s heart felt like it wasn’t beating in his chest anymore.

Ashton was too hungover to get out of bed that morning so Calum went home alone at lunchtime. His stomach was empty and he was starving but there was a sick feeling brewing inside him that he couldn’t shake.

Calum ignored Ashton’s phone calls and texts. He avoided him at college and begged his teachers for another seat in class, and it worked for almost two weeks.

Ashton stared at him - not with confusion or pain but with that same measured look again, that calculation that sent Calum’s blood running cold in his veins.

The older boy left Calum for a little while, gave him a week to think because Calum had finally caved and messaged him on Facebook, begging for some time because he was tired - _so_ fucking tired - and he felt like he was burning out.

Calum met Ashton in the park on Sunday evening, when there were only a few weeks of their college course left. There was an air of finality when Ashton walked towards the bench Calum was sitting on; it felt fitting somehow.

“Ash,” Calum said quietly but his voice sounded hollow. The stars were beginning to blink into view overhead but Calum felt dark and cold. “I think you already know why I asked you to meet me.”

Ashton looked at him silently for a long, long time before he pressed his lips together into a flat line.

“You’ve been so distant recently,” he said but he sounded like he was reading from a script. “Have I hurt you? Is there something wrong with you? Please, Cal, tell me. I want to help.”

Calum closed his eyes because they were burning now and _damnit_ , this wasn’t fair.

“Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” he whispered and Ashton made a little noise in the back of his throat, and it sounded like a challenge. “I just… I don’t think this - _us_ \- is working anymore. I’m too tired.”

“ _Calum_ ,” Ashton said heavily and there was a weight to his voice. He was speaking in that tone he liked to adopt when he wanted to remind Calum that he was older… wiser… _better_. It made Calum feel fucking sick now but it was liberating to finally be able to talk. It made him feel like chains he hadn’t even known he was wearing had been cut loose.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Calum said and his hands were shaking so badly that he had to bury them in the pockets of his jacket. “It’s killing me. _We’re_ killing me. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Cal, I’m a good guy -” Ashton began but Calum saw red then, forced himself to look away - out over the park towards the pond and the leaves rustling in the breeze - as he took a deep, calming breath.

“No,” Calum said and there was a lump in his throat now. He thought of Ashton in his kitchen briefly, cooking bacon in front of the cheery yellow walls as he sang along to the radio with Calum. There was a Tom Hardy calendar on the wall. Calum was going to sob later; he could feel it. “No, you’re fucking not.”

“You don’t mean this. I _know_ you don’t mean this,” Ashton said and he was frowning faintly now, like he hadn’t expected their conversation to go this way. “You’re going to regret it and you’re going to beg me to take you back, and I’ll do it, Cal. I’ll do it because I’m the best guy you’re going to meet and I know you love me. You _said_ it.”

“I said a lot of things. We _both_ did.”

“But I love you," Ashton said blankly, eyes hard. "You can’t leave me like this, Calum. I deserve better. We were going to make it work. We were going to have a weekend away and visit a new city. We were going to get a dog. We were going to _be_ something -”

“Except you never tried,” Calum whispered and his balled fists gradually uncurled as his hands fell limply by his sides. There were stabbing pains in his chest when he thought about it. About _them_.

This hurt but he knew it was the right decision because there was self-pity on Ashton’s lovely, _cold_ face and… and those strange hazel eyes had been familiar once but they weren’t now. Not anymore.

“If that’s how you feel.” Ashton gave up, just like that. He was fiddling with the hem of his jumper - it had an outline of two of the characters from Pulp Fiction on it wearing Star Wars masks; Calum had got it for him for his birthday - and the dark-haired boy found himself staring at it for a moment as the night grew colder. John Travolta was scowling into the darkness with a gun held out in front of him.

Calum’s hands were trembling like leaves in the wind.

“I’m done with this,” Calum breathed but it sounded like he was shouting.

“Then there’s nothing more to say,” Ashton said and Calum was starting to feel guilty until the older boy spoke next: “I’ll be messaging your family of course. I’d like to say goodbye to them. They deserve that much.”

Calum felt sick with the sudden rush of anger that seared through him but he forced himself calm, watching Ashton levelly as Calum swallowed past the pain rising inside him.

“I’m leaving now,” he said and Ashton simply nodded, still sitting on the bench as the moon began its turn of the sky and Calum started to shiver.

“Take care, Calum,” Ashton said.

He gave a little shrug as Calum turned away, looking like he couldn’t care less, and Calum was too tired to hate him then. He was too tired to do anything but leave.

The dark-haired boy felt Ashton’s eyes on his back when he walked away.

Calum didn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this might be the most personal story I’ve ever written.  
> And I don’t know what happens at the end yet.  
> But I know Calum will be okay. I think I will be too.
> 
> I don't know if anyone will read this but thank you if you did. Please let me know what you thought <3


End file.
